


A Walk to Forget

by wellhereweare



Series: Bridget Triton [1]
Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Deranged Worship, Extremely Underage, F/M, It's Not As Romantic As He Hoped, Nothing Too Bad Happens Outside of Hershel's Brain, Temporarily Unrequited Love, They Go On A Walk Mostly, Trans AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:07:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24386422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellhereweare/pseuds/wellhereweare
Summary: Hershel, after several days awake, decides to confess his love to the young girl Clark abandoned at his house just a few months before.
Relationships: Hershel Layton/Luke Triton
Series: Bridget Triton [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760881
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	A Walk to Forget

**Author's Note:**

> a/n A fic for 999blackflowers' Bridget AU. Bridget's dropped off at Layton's house at age 8 because this is the 70s, and Clark handles having a trans child poorly. Hershel is a bad person trying his best, but when he's unwell, it gets the better of him.

A spiky sort of energy threaded itself through his limbs as he gathered the groggy girl up, his gifts carefully hidden away in his coat. Two were perhaps too much? For a first - is a confession a date? He shook out the thought as he helped Bridget with her shoes, her tiny bare feet soft in his hand. He frowned a bit at it and wandered to her room to get socks, the girl’s tiny voice questioning behind.

“You need socks, Dear Girl.” Silly thing, he thought fondly. He picked the ones that went up to her knees for reasons more practical than prurient and skittered back to kneel in front of her. “Foot.” He prompted, and she offered one hesitantly.

He unrolled it over her calf, carefully not to touch her too much. All the same, skimming her silky skin set his heart racing. He smiled weakly at her, he was doing this badly out of order. He wished he was brave enough to do this another night, another day. He needed more time, but he always needed more time.

The past few weeks had been stressful to say the least, but the heavy pressure had slowly peeled away the blinders. He felt as though he’d been awakened, allowed to finally see reality as it was. 

They’d been walking later than he preferred, several weeks ago, and passed through the park on the way home. The twilight had hit her just right, set her aflame, and he saw it. _He saw Her_. He’d fought the realization at first, but in the dark of night, it had crept back up on him. He wondered if she knew what he did, or if being trapped here in such a beautiful but frail physical form had left her with a need to recover.

He needed to take her there, to tell her in the place that he’d feel the world shift, that he loved her. That he thought of her every moment.

“Professah?” Her quivering little voice pulled him from his thoughts. “ ‘m shoes are on. Are we going somewhere?” 

“So they are!” He was losing time, blast. He could sleep later. This had to be done now. She deserved to hear his admiration and a little human weakness wouldn’t keep him from it. “I guess we should be going then.”

“Professah?”

“It’s alright, Darling Bridget, we simply need to go for a walk.” She pouted up at him a bit, pink lipped and sleepy eyed, but he kept himself steady. It wouldn’t do to kiss her before he’d even confessed. Clark had already thrown them out of the proper order. Living together first, my god, he thought, but she’ll understand surely? 

He offered her his hand, whole body warming when she took his. She was too small to properly hold it, having to wrap her tiny fingers around two of his larger ones. Too charming, too sweet, this girl, he thought and rubbed his thumb over them. She smiled at him, still looking faintly uncomfortable. 

He led her out into the night. They passed quickly through the streets under the hollow light of the street lamps, the half moon dull and the stars distant against the London lights. Until finally, finally, they came to the park. 

It had several entrances but the one he’d chosen was small, half hidden behind an older tree that wound through the rails of the fence on one side.It was largely forgotten except by those in his neighborhood. He’d been living in the same neighborhood for almost a decade or he’d never have known it was there. Vagrants rarely used it and the police even more rarely. 

Bridget froze up when she realized where they were going but didn’t fight when he pulled her along. 

“It’s alright, my dear.” He spoke to her very gently. “I have something I want to share with you. You’ll be perfectly safe with me, I promise you.”

She looked up at him, eyes dark and frightened as she stumbled a bit to keep up with him.

“W-was I not safe, Professah?” She asked, voice high and thready. “I don’t understand. Why aren’t we at home? Isn’t it late? You don’t even like being outside when the sun’s going down.”

“You are perfectly safe, as I said.”

“That isn’t. Do you mean we weren’t, then? I don’t understand. Was there something in the apartment?”

“There was nothing in the apartment.” Hershel said, lowly, but she only looked more frightened.

“It’s a monster. It’s following us!” She declared. “That must be it! Professah, why aren’t we going somewhere safe? It’s- it’s so scary here.” 

Hershel fought to keep a frown off his face. This wasn’t going right _at all._

“There’s no monster.” He assured her evenly, frustrated with himself. He was bungling it, ruining this opportunity the same way his touch had poisoned everything else. She would survive his aura of calamity, perhaps, divine as she was. “No one, and nothing, is following us, and if there were, I would protect you from it.” She didn’t seem convinced.

“So... Why are we here?” He had to pull her a bit so she didn’t walk into a small bush, so intently was she watching his face. “It’s dark and scary and cold and I was sleeping, Professah.” She shot him a full, devastating pout. “You woke me up way too early.”

“You’re cold?” Oh no, he thought, realizing as he said it that indeed she was only wearing her nightgown and shoes. “I rushed you out without it. Didn’t I?” She nodded.

“Professah, you can tell me if something’s wrong. Usually, you make me wear way too much.” This was far enough. He could see the spot he’d considered theirs distantly; it would have to do. He couldn’t keep her out here much longer, if she was cold. 

He would confess and give her his gifts. She would accept them and him and allow him to wrap her tightly in her shawl and kiss her softly. If she was still cold, he would offer her his coat and carry her back to the apartment, holding her close to him all the way. They could sleep together tonight, perhaps not as lovers the first night, but twined lovingly together. He hoped that being made love to by a man as a wife would allow her to see herself as the woman, the goddess, that she was.

He tried to get his thoughts together. He’d practiced a few times before he’d woke her but it all abandoned him now, in his hour of need. When had he ever gotten it right, though?

“I have, for a long time now, wanted to speak to you about this.” He began, too formal or perhaps not enough? How does one announce one’s affections to anyone, let alone a divinity? “It’s a strong feeling, overwhelming at times, and I feel I must share it with you.”

She looked up at him nervously as he pulled his hand away and stepped back. Once, twice. A formal distance, an appropriate one.

“Professah?”

He pulled his gifts from his breast pocket, where his journal usually sat. He wouldn’t need it tonight. The first was a box of strawberry and tempered milk chocolate truffles from a chocolaterie he’d had to hunt down. High quality, but simple and sweet as she preferred. When he’d bought it, he thought it was perfect. Now, he was holding a cardboard box with a handful of candy in it. He offered it to her, solemn and ashamed.

“I love chocolates!” She giggled softly opening the box, and his shoulders stopped aching as they relaxed. “They’re for me?” She sobered. “What about what you wanted to say?” He pulled the second present free and unraveled it.

The intricately woven shawl, he now realized, was remarkably less impressive in the near complete dark of the dim moonlight. The tongues of flame, the intense fiery coloring, he’d chosen to replicate the Sacred Flame of Bridget, looked like nothing. The world tilted on its axis. It was hard to breathe. His gifts, like his love, wouldn’t be enough. How could he ever have thought something so paltry would sway Her? 

Sacrifices, he reminded himself, were made to show devotion. Nothing would ever be to the Gods’ standards otherwise. He swallowed painfully.

“I love you.” He admitted, voice almost swallowed by the sounds of life around them. He trembled before her judgment.

“Oh Professor!” She cried, voice brightly and warm. “Oh, I love you, too!” Relief flooded his body. She grinned, mouth smudged with chocolate. “I’m so glad; Dad never did.”

The delusion shattered, all at once. Acid crawled up his throat. He’d... In the middle of the night, she must have been so frightened. Cold. For some _sick fantasy_. He hated himself so much, beyond words, beyond comprehension. He was the worst, vilest being he’d ever seen. 

He’d planned to take her to bed, to make love to her _soon._ The monster hadn’t followed her from the apartment; it had led her into the woods. No one would have found them. God, what if he hadn’t woken up?

“Is that for me too?” She asked brightly. “Is it a blanket?”

“Shawl.” He rasped, responding automatically. “I- you said you were cold, this might help. It’s for you.” It was too big. He’d bought a woman’s shawl, there was no way a child as tiny as she was could walk in it. “It’s prettier with more light.” He offered weakly, feeling faint.

The girl, a lovely brilliant girl but just a little girl, carefully put the top back on her empty box of chocolates and handed it to him as she took the shawl. 

He stared at the used cardboard, battered from just a few minutes in her hands. They'd been expensive and handmade. They were the sort of sweets that were made to be savored.

It had taken her less than two minutes to eat all of them. She was a child, why did it ache that she hadn't treated them as carefully as he'd chosen them?

She was giggling, wrapping herself up in her new shawl and swaying to watch the shawl swish back and forth. She looked up at him beaming, and Hershel smiled back as best he could. Her face dropped.

"Professah? Are you ok?" Concern crawled across her face, hurt slithering in with it. He wanted to kiss all of it away.

"I'm sick." It burst out of him. "I didn't. I didn't want to say, but I'm badly ill, Bridget."

“What?” The fear earlier was a faint shade of the terror in her voice now. He was sickened by how _gratifying_ it felt that she worried for him. “No, but. You’re so nice...” She was tearing up. Poor child, he thought, poor dear thing. “I don’t want to live with anyone else. You’ll be ok, right?” Her tiny voice cracked into a whisper.

“I am never going to get better.” He explained quietly. “It isn’t something you recover from, my dear.” 

“But you don’t seem sick?” She was starting to cry now, glittering tears rolling over her round cheeks. “Please don’t make me leave. Even if you get really sick, I want to stay with you, ok? I’ll make soup and tuck you in and everything, I promise.” 

“That’s not…” She sobbed, trying to speak even as he tried to explain, and his heart shattered. He knelt and caught her face in his hands to wipe away the tears. The girl threw herself into his chest on tiptoe, her arms flung around his neck. He carefully set his hands on her shoulder blades but pressed her closer. “My sweet girl, I don’t think I could send you away if I wanted.” He had certainly considered it that first night, for her own sake, but with the way the world treated girls like her he might actually be better for her as long as he could keep himself from doing things exactly like this.

“Do ya promise?” Voice muffled by his chest, she shook in his hands. She felt terrifically delicate, he thought. “You have to promise, Professah. And that you’re not going to die, too!” He pressed just a little harder, which the child apparently took as a prompt to nuzzle closer. Hershel’s body felt attuned to hers, every shift and tremor, the soft flow of her breath.

“I promise. Just, please, be patient with me, sometimes. I’m not always the version of me I’d like you to know.” It was the most honest he could bring himself to be with her. “That’s why I do things like this and get so strange about getting hugged.” He pushed her away too many times for so clever a child not to have noticed, and he could see the understanding in her face. “I’m aware I can seem distant,” he admitted, “But this _sickness_ is why, my dear. Never that I do not love you. If anything, it makes me love you more than I should.” She scrunched up her nose and opened her mouth.

“Come now,” He interrupted brightly, pretending he hadn’t seen her start to speak, to ask, “It’s much too cold for us to be out this late.” Nodding, the girl chirped an agreement.

“This is really pretty,” She added, gesturing with some of the crochet with which she’d just been swiping at her eyes. “But it’s not very warm.” Hershel nodded and in one motion slid off his coat. He made sure to make it flare out as he swung it around her thin shoulders. 

“Is that better, my girl?” 

“It’s warm!” She smiled and then shrieked with laughter when he picked her up. “Professah!”

“It’s just a bit big for you. It’ll be faster getting home, if I carry you.” She snuggled into his chest. He wondered if she could hear his heart. Did it matter, he wondered, as long as she loved him? As long as he kept her safe? 

“Can you tell me a story? It’s still kind of scary...” she confessed, as he picked his way carefully through the dark. 

“Once upon a time,” He started, flipping through his memory for stories that might suit her. Ah, he thought, perhaps that one. “There was a princess whose mother and father died when she was just a baby.”

“Nooo, it’s already _sad_ ,” she protested, but he could see the smallest smile on her face. 

“Hush,” He teased, “It gets better, I promise. It’s not much of a story if nothing changes.” He continued. “Her name was Ozma, and she would be beautiful and brilliant and kind when she grew, but so often other people were not. She was kidnapped as an infant and given to an evil witch,”

“You said it was gonna get better!” She whined. Hershel chuckled and kept talking.

“The witch knew that a girl so special would be looked for and recognized,” He clicked his fingers, carefully not to shift Bridget, “Just like that. So, the witch disguised her with a spell.”

“Did she turn Ozma into a kitty?” Bridget had been very into cats recently, but it still startled him. 

“No, no. Something much stranger.” He said, voice going very seriously. “She turned Ozma into a boy.” Bridget went very still. “She was still a lovely child, kind and brilliant, but the witch told her as she grew her name was Tip, short for Tippetarius.”

“It got so much worse.” Bridget informed him, primly. “You, sir, are a meanie liar.” He shook his head.

“The witch treated poor Ozma very badly, like a servant, but soon, she found friends that liked her very much. One of them was a good witch.” Bridget perked up. They weren’t far from home now. “The good witch, you see, was very, very angry and forced the bad witch to undo the spell so Ozma could be herself, again. She was still young, only a few years older than you, when the magic was undone, but she was so clever and kind, they felt safe making her queen.” Bridget was trying not to smile.

“I thought you didn’t like the queen.” She asked.

“I do not.” He agreed. “But this queen didn’t believe in war or any violence at all. She outlawed money. She thought that everyone should be equal and not have to work any harder than was necessary to live. Ozma split all the land and resources between everyone in her kingdom, in fact. She just did the administration work and made sure everyone was ok, even people that didn’t live in her kingdom.”

“And she never had to be a boy again?” She asked sleepily.

“Not for a second, and neither will you.” He assured her. “No one held it against her, because it wasn’t her fault that other people mistook her for one or made her think she was, and you shouldn’t let anyone treat you differently.”

“I should make people treat me like a queen?” She sounded blurry, head limp against his chest. He hummed, agreeably.

“Not my original point, but if you do, you have to be a kind queen.” She nodded and kept nodding, though it was more like nuzzling, half asleep as she was now. He doubted she’d remember any of the way home in the morning, but thankfully they had made it. Also fortunately, in his manic rush earlier he’d forgotten to lock the door, making it easy to slip inside without jostling her too much. They hadn’t gotten robbed, too, which was pleasant if not terribly surprising given how often he’d forgotten to lock up over the years. 

He settled her into her bed, still in his coat, and went to clean up for a few minutes to calm down. He slipped some of his books into stacks and locked the door as he passed it. Finally satisfied and far too tired to continue, he went to his bedroom. Setting his hat aside, he quickly changed into his pyjamas. As he moved to turn off his light, a small knock rang out at his door. When he opened it, he found big dark eyes staring pleadingly up at him. Bridget still wore his coat over her thin nightgown, rubbing her sleeve covered hands together.

“Professah, it is very late and dark.” She told him matter of factly.

“It is, yes.” He agreed, feeling as though he stood a bit to the left of his actual body. 

“It’s scary.” She continued in the same tone. “I’m going to sleep here, ok?” With that, she skittered passed him, quickly, clumsily climbing into his bed. He could only stare after her. “Come here. Sleep.” She chirruped, imperatively. He did as she said, gingerly settling in beside her. He wondered if perhaps she wanted to be held but she’d mostly just commandeered more space than he’d have guessed was physically possible. 

He settled onto his side, facing her. He considered the merits of turning away in case the urge to pull her into a snuggle got too overwhelming. Suddenly, the choice was no longer his to make, as the young girl shifted and wiggled close, tucking her little head into his neck. He settled an arm over her.

“I’ll be patient.” She whispered. He startled, having forgotten. ‘Please be patient,’ He’d asked. He hadn’t truly expected an answer. “I’ll take care of you and love you and one day, you _will_ feel better, I promise.” She told him, hushed but fierce. “Because you love me, too. And you’re the best, ok?” Hershel blinked away tears. 

“Goodnight, Bridget. Thank you.”

“Goodnight, Professah.”

**Author's Note:**

> There might be a second chapter at some point, when Bridget's much older, but I haven't decided yet.


End file.
